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contact me as soon as she knew what the
    problem was.
    She glanced up at me from her position leaning over the box, and raised her eyebrows.
    “It could be expensive.”
    “Money is not an issue.”
    She nodded, and carried the box into one of the consulting rooms, talking in a high
    pitched voice to the kitten as she left. It mewled in reply. I turned to Mark.
    “Let’s get you to school.”
    He nodded briefly. “Thanks.”
    I dropped him outside a large brick building surrounded by a six foot chain link fence,
    and teeming with school kids. The sign said St Paul Secondary School. He hopped out of his
    seat as soon as I stopped, waved, and disappeared into the crowds. I sat for a moment,
    wondering what it was like to go to school, and wondering if I would have liked it. Probably
    not. I had never been to school, nor had my brothers. My father had wanted to minimise
    our exposure to normal life and normal people. I guess he must have believed that what we
    didn’t know, we wouldn’t miss. He had known that we would have to leave school before
    we all changed, and just being around other people became too risky. Mostly for other
    people, of course, but for us too, in a way. There’s nothing that upsets people more than
    when somebody gets killed. Declaring emphatically that it had been an accident wouldn’t
    have cut it - there would have been too much blood. People would have been angry and
    vengeful and we would have been locked up, if we were lucky.
    I turned the car around and headed back to my newly purchased property, hoping that
    the cleaning staff had arrived. They had, and shortly afterwards a huge white van with the
    name of a renovating company pulled up. A stocky man in overalls got out, looked at the
    property, and grunted something to his passenger, a young man with a slack jaw and acne.
    Next thing the place was swarming with people. I got back in the car and went to find some
    breakfast.

    Rebecca
    I hadn’t even realised that Mark had disappeared until Harry knocked on the door,
    looking forlorn and embarrassed.
    “Mark here?” Chatty Harry.
    “He went outside to wait for you.” I tried to look over his shoulder, which was difficult.
    At fourteen Harry was already way taller than me, and bulky. He had a mop of unruly,
    suspiciously black hair that was combed forwards and covered half his face, and an stud in
    his nose.
    “He must have left early,” Harry shrugged, and then grinned at me. “Bye, Rebecca.” He
    enunciated each syllable of my name separately. I smiled back, vowing to chew Mark out
    about sharing his annoying enunciation of my name with his friends. Harry left, and I
    reluctantly abandoned my book, slung my bag over my shoulder, and hobbled outside,
    crutches in hand. I locked the door behind me and set out slowly for school, which was a
    couple of blocks away, less than a mile. It felt much longer. The bell went about three
    minutes before I finally swung myself through the big double gated entrance on my trusty
    crutches. I’d started to appreciate them a few hundred yards into my journey. I was still
    exhausted by the time I got to school, and my upper arms were burning. I stood for a few
    minutes, catching my breath before heading off to my first class of the day.
    I had forgotten about Mark’s disappearance this morning until I saw him standing next
    to Harry during break. They were both leaning against the south facing wall of the school
    hall, eyes closed, absorbing the weak sunlight that played over their faces. I left them to
    their easy companionship and went to explain my late arrival to the headmaster.
    I was halfway there when I almost bumped into Shanice. I had been watching the
    ground for cracks and crevices that could ensnare one of the rubber tips of my crutches and
    send me flying to land in an undignified heap in front of all these curious onlookers.
    I sensed her malignant presence, stopped, and looked up into her mean piggy eyes.
    Shanice and I had a